


Roof Boy And Tiny

by SleepyStyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bottom!Harry, Eating Disorders, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, slight abuse but not in much detail, top!Louis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyStyles/pseuds/SleepyStyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey you!”</p>
<p>The boy looked down to see a person stood at the foot of the block. <br/>“What d’you want?” He called down.</p>
<p>“For you to get away from that ledge, it’s quite dangerous!”</p>
<p>The boy on the rooftop let out a laugh, not quite a real one though.</p>
<p>“I sit here a lot, I’m not going to fall!”</p>
<p>Why was this other boy walking around London at two in the morning, surely it wasn't safe? </p>
<p>“Just be careful okay! Don’t do anything stupid! I’ll see you around Rooftop Boy.” The boy with the deep voice called out.</p>
<p>“Bye Tiny” Rooftop boy yelled back, hoping he would see Tiny again.</p>
<p>Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Even if he did, would he even remember him?</p>
<p>Probably not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolouge

Prologue

August 18th 2014, two am.

“Go to sleep.” He mumbled to himself whist wrapping himself further into his duvet.

It was the exact same as last night.

And the night before.

And the one before that.

And almost every night for the last few weeks.

He didn't quite know why. Maybe it was just his head being an inconvenience again. It did this sometimes, shutting off for a couple of weeks at a time. 

He sighed. Nothing quite seemed to make much sense these days.

His London apartment was a top floor one, meaning that he could climb out of his bedroom window and onto the gravel roof. He did it often, mostly on nights like these, where no matter how much he attempted to will his blue eyes to shut, they just wouldn’t.

Picking up his lighter and pack of cigarettes, completely giving up on the hopes of getting a good nights sleep, he slipped on his thick black slipper socks and jumped out of his window. Feeling the breeze run through his honey brown hair was something that brought him great pleasure. 

The city skyline was beautiful.

Lights shone from each and every direction, there were colours from black to white and from red to blue. Beautiful.

Fumbling with his cigarette and covering the end with this hand, he lit it up and kept the lighter burning for a few seconds just to admire the small fire held between his fingertips. It had been four years since he’d picked up the habit and still, every deeply inhaled drag caused a familiar burning sensation from the back of his throat to his lungs.

Walking over to the edge of the building, he bent over the edge; wondering what would happen if he was to trip and fall. His connections with the majority of his family except his mum and sometimes his sisters had been cut when he came out as gay at seventeen and friends weren’t quite his forte, he’d had a couple back in secondary, but he didn’t talk to them much anymore.

“Hey you!”

The boy looked down to see a person stood at the foot of the block. 

“What d’you want?” He called down.

“For you to get away from that ledge, it’s quite dangerous!”

The boy on the rooftop let out a laugh, not quite a real one though.

“I sit here a lot, I’m not going to fall!”

Why was this other boy walking around London at two in the morning, surely it wasn't safe? 

“Just be careful okay! Don’t do anything stupid! I’ll see you around Rooftop Boy.” The boy with the deep voice called out.

“Bye Tiny” Rooftop boy yelled back, hoping he would see Tiny again.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Even if he did, would he even remember him?

Probably not.


	2. Chapter One | Fuck, uh, hi

_Chapter One_

 

_September 24th 2015, seven am._

 

It had been over a year since Roof Boy and Tiny had that brief conversation.

 

It had never really crossed either of their minds that they'd cross paths again. Roof Boy still spent his time smoking cigarettes and getting drunk and as for Tiny, well, he'd met someone, Tiny was scared of this person but he had to stay with them because of certain problems.

 

Tiny had to buy a flat with her soon.

 

Roof Boy hadn't slept properly in a good two weeks, getting by on four hours at most a night.

 

It was seven am. He had work in an hour. He worked in a music shop, selling albums and doing the occasional piano lesson.

 

Roof Boy looked at himself in the mirror. Dark grey patches beneath his eyes and a washed out, sick looking tone occupied his face.

 

He hated it.

 

Sighing, he swept his brushed, yet unkept hair into a side fringe, not being bothered to groom it into his usual quiff today. Slipping on a pair of black skinny jeans, a sweater, a beanie and a pair of black nikes, he grabbed his keys, phone, headphones and charger and shut his door behind him.

 

The walk to the music shop didn't take too long. Occupying himself with music and the feeling of the familiar concrete beneath his feet, the time passed quickly. He got to the shop at seven-fifty-seven and breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't late or hungover today.

 

Nobody worked in the shop apart from him on Tuesdays because for whatever reason, it was their slowest day for customers, meaning that if there was no costumers by four, he could leave an hour early.

 

Putting the key into the lock and pushing the door open, he sighed at what state the music shop had been left in. He was thinking about firing the girl that worked there currently and employing someone new because the state that the shop was always left in made his skin crawl.

 

Drums always seemed enticing to Roof Boy, although he never learned how to play them. Knowing that nobody would arrive until at least ten, maybe not even then, he decided to have a go on the instrument.

 

A pair of standard drum sticks were placed on the floor tom. Even though he didn't play himself, he had to know a lot about the instruments in the shop in case a buyer needed information on anything.

 

He'd watched people play drums plenty of times. How hard could it be? Sitting down on the black stool, he placed his right foot on the bass drum and his left on the symbol pedal.

 

He started to tap on the symbol, then added in the snare drum every couple beats, then gradually added in the bass drum.

 

'See, it's not hard' he thought before messing up.

 

He chuckled to himself before attempting to play the basic beat again, this time playing for significantly longer.

 

A small yet noticeable smile took place on Roof Boy's face.

 

He finally did something right.

 

Plugging his phone into the overhead speakers, he hit shuffle on his music and a familiar song came on.

 

 

_Look After You - The Fray_

 

The drums didn't sound overly complicated and he picked it up pretty easily after listening to the song a few times.

 

_Bass, snare, bass, bass, snare, bass, snare, bass, bass, snare._

 

_repete._

_repete._

_mess up._

_repete._

_complete._

_repete._

_perfect._

 

Looking down at his phone, he saw that it was now quarter to eleven.

 

_‘Had I really spent that long on that?’_ He thought.

 

Days in the music shop were quite dull, not many people came and if they did, they weren’t there for long.

 

Roof Boy was pretty lonely. He never really made the effort to speak to anyone and nobody made the effort to speak to him. The last proper conversation he’d had with someone was two weeks ago when his mum called to ask how he was doing. They had chatted for forty something minutes about anything and everything. Since then, it had only been people asking,

 

“Can I get this?”

“Do you know where I can find this album?”

“How much is this?”

 

and not much more.

 

Sighing, he got up from the drum kit and ambled over to where the vinyls were kept. He spent a few hours sorting them and all of the cd’s into order of the artist, year they were made and popularity.

 

It took him so long to organise everything because it hadn’t been sorted in months. He never had the energy to do anything; even doing nothing was exhausting.

 

It was now two o’clock.

 

_Only another two hours._

 

Perching himself on the sales counter, he slid his phone out of his pocket and played a couple of games for a while. His day was going by painfully slowly at this point.

 

_I hope a customer comes soon. That would be nice._

 

Getting off of the counter, he went to the corner, behind the vinyls and sat down at his piano.

 

Piano was something that took his mind off of everything because the concentration needed in order to successfully play a piece was immense. He played whatever came to mind and only got about half way through his third piece before someone stood in front of the piano, a small smirk on their face.

 

_I’m not going to be completely isolated today, that’s good, maybe I can make a friend, or maybe not. Not many people speak to me. Am I too intimidating? Do I look like a slob? Am I just weird?_

 

“Fuck, uh, hi how can I help?”

 

“Um do you have any of the ramones on vinyl?” The person asked.

 

They had long brown hair, set in roughly tasseled curls, captivating green eyes and legs to die for.

 

“Um yeah sure, they’re right here.” Roof Boy said, jumping off of the piano bench and walking down to the Q-S section of the shop. “Which album were you thinking about buying?”

 

“Um, in all honesty I wasn’t, I just wanted an excuse to talk to you.” His deep, yet smooth voice chuckled.

 

Curly had heard the piano piece as soon as he’d walked into the store and just stood listening for a while. Whatever was being played sounded wonderful and he didn't want to break the sound of that, at least not for a while.

 

“You’re the first person that’s actually spoken to me in weeks, wow.” Roof Boy said, taking a seat on the till’s counter top.

 

“How come?” The curly boy asked, pulling up a stool and sitting on it.

 

Roof Boy contemplated on telling this person his entire life story, but decided against it seen as he’d only known him for a few minutes.

 

“ ‘m not too sure, I just don’t seem to be a classically ‘people’ person and I live on a top floor flat on my own so it doesn’t really give much room for meeting anyone I guess.”

 

“I get that, I used to be like that, I think the longest I spent without having an actual conversation with someone was like two months, it feels horrible.” He sighed.

 

“You know, I never thought someone would understand that. I mean, I spend all of my time here, reading or at my flat writing. It gets lonely y’know?”

 

“Yeah I get you, but do you know whats worse than speaking to nobody at all?” Curly asked.

 

Roof Boy raised his eyebrows as if to ask what and Curly replied with,

 

“Being forced to speak to someone when all you really want is to be alone for a while or speak to someone that cares.”

 

Roof Boy looked at his with sad eyes.

He understood that pain to some extent.

 

When he was still living at home, before he moved out, he had to put up with his grandparents telling him he was worthless, pathetic and ‘a queer waste of space on this earth’. Those insults still clung to him like a set of nails digging on his heart.

 

“I understand that, but if you ever want to talk to someone that does care, I’m here every day apart from Sundays. Nine till five, but sometimes I come in at ten, sometimes I leave at four, so we’ll just say I’m here ten till four.”

 

Curly chucked, “That would be nice, I don’t remember the last time someone cared about anything I had to say and if you ever need someone, I’m here as well.” He nodded, running his hand through his hair that was beginning to fall into his face.

 

“So, who’s this person that you’re being forced to speak to, but really don't want too?” Roof Boy asked.

“My girlfriend, because well, my family will disown me if I broke up with her.” 

 

“How come?”

 

“Well, my family kind of guessed that I wasn't straight and said that if I came out, they’d cut all of my allowances which I uh, kind of need.” Curly looked down at his feet.

 

“It’s alright lad,” Roof Boy said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “it’s the same for me, except my mum doesn't hate me, everyone else does though.” 

 

“I’m sorry about that, but it’s like, sometimes just having someone to vent out too can help. Coffee is always good too.” Curly nodded.

 

“I agree, black coffee is all I really drink coffee wise, but tea, now that is beautiful.” He exclaimed, patting Curly on the back.

 

Curly looked down at his phone to check the time, his heart racing slightly when he saw that he was already ten minutes late. “Well, I um have to be off now so I guess I’ll be seeing you soon then. I’ll bring coffee and tea next time and we can have a chat about anything and everything because why the hell not.”

 

Roof Boy nodded, “I’d like that a lot.”

 

“Well, I’m going to be off, it was nice talking to you - wait, I never got your name.” Curly said, leaning against the door frame.

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Roof Boy chuckled, a smile appearing on his face and his eyes lighting up a little.

 

“I guess I’ll just have to find out then.” Curly smirked, before giving a quick goodbye and heading out of the shop.

 

The cold breeze nipped at his exposed ankles. He was dressed in leather boots, rolled up black jeans, a white v-neck and a leather jacket.

 

The walk back to his flat should’ve taken ten minutes, but along the way, he took a few photos of the London skyline with the sunset illuminating it in such a way that all of the buildings were just simple silhouettes and the bright orange sky was the only colour in the photo. Beautiful.

 

Once he reached his door, his heart sped up a little and he had to inhale deeply before opening the door and stepping inside.

 

He was greeted by the very person that scared him most.

 

She looked angry and it was at this moment Curly knew he’d have to mentally prepare for what was to come.

 

“And where the fuck have you been?”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiny brings coffee, writes in his diary and arranges a date.

Chapter Two

September 25th 2015, six am.

 

His head hurt, his face hurt, his stomach hurt. He was just in pain.

Last night was the worst it had been in a while. She’d punched him, kicked him, shouted at him and made him feel awful for a good two hours. He slept on the sofa last night and then got up at six am promptly before leaving the house at half six. There was nothing about her that he liked, no physical feature, certainly nothing about her personality was appealing.

Goddamn he hated her.

The cold, brisk air still had somewhat of a hint of summer hanging onto the end of it, for which Curly was grateful for seen as he was wearing his usual attire of black boots, black skinny jeans with knee cutouts, a white tee shirt and a thin jacket.

Making his way to his usual seat in the park that was about a half hour walk from his home, he took out his blue notebook. He always carried it with him just incase anything happened, which it rarely did, but just incase.

His life was relatively dull with nothing particularly worth writing about, but he liked to write poetry. His muses were quite often nature or the people that were impacting on his life in that moment of time, or simply what was running through his head.

 

September 25th 2015, Park Bench, 07:03am

Well, hi,

It’s been a long while since I wrote in you.  
Not much has changed, I’m still lonely, still missing home, still wishing I wasn't forced to stay with Amille.

She kept hitting me last night. I was only an hour late home but she didn't like that. Whatever, it’s my own fault anyway.

But I met a boy! I feel like I’ve seen him before, but maybe it’s just me.

He has this unkept brown hair and the cutest little voice. His eyes though, although they’re a shade of blue that resembles a cool iceberg, they’re filled with so much sadness.

I just want to hug him and tell him he’s going to be okay.

Fuck, I don’t even know this guys name and I’m already infatuated.

I think I’m going to go grab a coffee and a tea and go see him. It’s only like half seven and he said that the store didn’t open till eight or nine but I’m hoping its eight so I can hear his voice again because damn, it is beautiful.

Maybe I’ll find out his name today, I hope so.

-h.e.s

07:36am

 

Placing his book and pen back into his backpack, he made his way over to his local coffee shop and ordered himself a coffee with milk and one sugar, and tea with milk and no sugar.

He just assumed that the boy wouldn’t want sugar for some reason.

His estimate was that the music shop was about another twenty minutes walk back closer to his flat so he began to take a slow walk. The drinks were covered in that weird styrofoam stuff which made it uncomfortable to hold, but also kept his hands warm which was nice.

Rooftop Boy had made it to the shop five minutes early, so he let himself in and sat over at his usual counter.

He’d only had a half hour of sleep and today it was really getting to him. The sunrise was pretty lovely though, the sky was filled with ‘candy-floss clouds’ as he liked to call them, and all of the colours from purple to orange were visible.

He’d always loved sunrises. They signalled a new day by bending light and causing the colour spectrum to be visible on a much wider scale. Sunrises always gave him hope that the day might turn out alright, they usually didn’t but there were the odd few exceptions.

It was eight ten and he thought nobody would be there at any point soon, so he went into the music booth and decided to do a little singing.

He’d been told that his voice was lovely, that he should try to become a singer. He never believed it. Although he loved singing, he thought his voice was too high and cracked too much for it to ever work out for him professionally. 

 

Once again, plugging his phone into the speakers, the same song came on as yesterday.

 

Look After You - The Fray

He sighed. Although it was an amazing song, he didn’t want to keep learning it, he already knew it. Not having the heart to skip it though, he carried on singing.

Curly had walked into the shop whilst he was reaching the first chorus, and much like the day before, just stood, admiring the beautiful being in front of him.

His voice was so perfectly pitched and the little hook his voice did when he sung specific parts was angelic.

His eyes were closed as he hit note after note of the song perfectly and Curly had come to the conclusion that it was the loveliest thing he’d ever heard.

He finished the song with a smile on his face before opening his eyes to see a familiar face stood with his familiar smirk and familiar gleam in his eyes, clapping.

A blush rose to the boy’s face as he realised that the other boy had been listening to him.

He always hated people hearing him sing but for some reason, he didn't mind the curly boy hearing him.

For some reason he seemed to trust him.

“I brought tea.” Curly smiled, handing him the now-drinkable temperature cup of tea.

“Cheers.” Roof Boy smiled, taking the cup from his hands. God they were so smooth. It was just the right temperature, it didn’t burn your mouth, but it wasn't quite lukewarm yet. Just how he liked it. “So, what brings you here today?” He asked.

“I needed to get out of my house and I needed to learn your name right?” He smiled, his breath hitching and his heart beating, and not in a good way, when he thought about the night before.

The smaller boy looked up at the taller one and noticed the red mark on his cheek, it was slightly obscured by his hair, but not completely.

Raising his eyebrows as if to say, ‘is it okay for me to look?’ he was surprised when the tall boy nodded, looking down.

He gasped slightly when he saw that it was a handprint.

“Did she do this to you?” he asked, already half knowing the answer.

“Yeah, she uh, she did. But it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have been late, I shouldn’t have fucked up and forgotten the time and-“

“It’s not your fault. Maybe being late was a factor to this, but you don’t deserve this. This isn't okay for someone to do, you know that right?” He asked, pulling the taller boy into a hug, which he quickly accepted.

“I mean, of course I know it’s not, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just cope with it y’know.” He nodded sadly.

“I can’t empathise with you, but I know what you mean. It’s like, you know that what’s happening isn't right, but at the same time you feel completely powerless to try and stop it because anything that you could possibly do in the situation could only make it worse.” He mumbled into his shoulder, hoping that it could somehow make the other boy feel better.

“Thank you, that really means a lot, like not many people are willing to talk to me, let alone give advice.” He smiled slightly, pulling back from their hug. It felt right to be hugging the shorter boy, he held him as though he was fragile, like a china vase and pulling away from the hug left him feeling pretty cold. 

He didn't like it.

“It’s alright, I’m sure I’ll talk about myself at some point and you’ll be praying for me to shut up, but you have a nice voice, so keep speaking.” He said cheekily, trying to lighten the mood.

“Says you! Your voice is wonderful, like just so…pretty.” He finished, feeling satisfied with his chosen adjective.

“Pretty?” Roof Boy asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah. Pretty. Just like you.” Curly smirked, wiggling his eyebrows.

The blush that had begun to disappear from Roof Boy’s face made a comeback, flooding his cheeks red. He looked down. “Well, thank you there.” He looked back up, looking the tall boy right in the eye and smiled warmly. “So, do you play anything?”

“Nope, but I like to sing and I’ve always wanted to learn to play something.” He smiled over at the piano.

“Well, I do piano lessons sometimes if you’d want me to teach you?” 

“I’d like that.” He replied simply. “Only one catch before you teach me anything at all.”

“And what would that be?”

“Tell me your name?” He asked, a mischievous smirk on his face.

“Only if you take me on a date first.” He retorted, surprised on what just came out of his mouth.

“It’s on. I’ll see you tomorrow, but can I have your number first? It might be needed.”

The shorter boy beckoned for Curly to pass his phone over and when he did, he added his number and saved his contact name as ‘the love of my life’ then handed it back.

“Text me yeah?”

“Of course, keep tomorrow free or something yeah?”

“Of course. Bye Curly.”


End file.
